


Perennial

by orange_crushed



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-15
Updated: 2011-04-15
Packaged: 2017-10-18 02:52:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_crushed/pseuds/orange_crushed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Surprise," she says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perennial

It's a rough landing but not the roughest ever; he supposes it is the ship expressing her displeasure at how long he's stayed away. The monitors blink off briefly and he throws the levers back with some irritation. Really, it's all the same to the Ponds, on the slow path. He gets up and shakes the marbles out of his trainers. He throws open the doors and steps out and inhales it, that fine scorched smell of leaves and wet grass and things retreating underground; the warm orange taste of October in the back of his throat, memories of fires and thick scarves and worn books and homemade bread, the cozy hand-knit feelings that only Earth can summon up for him these days. He steps into a pile of oak leaves and kicks them around for a bit, wondering if it's too early to pop in on them, by a day or an hour or a week. He looks up and around, trying to gauge the time by the sun, and sees her rising from a bench at the end of the path.

It's a woman in a plain blue coat, buttoned up to the neck, with a cream-colored scarf and a shopping bag in her hand. There's a loaf of bread and a spray of greens peeking out. She stands perfectly still and waits for him. The morning light, because it is morning, turns her hair ten colors of gold.

"Ah," he says, and his hands twitch against his cuffs. "Ah." He starts to cross the distance and stops and then starts again, because he isn't an awkward teenager at a school dance, for crying out loud. He's determined and manly. He's got the bowtie. Très cool. Far above, a zepplin in hover mode blinks and circles the park, advertising health drinks and covering the clouds.

"You're still a terrible driver," says Rose.

"You," he says, and can't think of what comes next. "This isn't exactly- how is this happening?" he continues, looking up and down and around and checking his own watch and realizing it's been broken since Amy ducked him in the pond after the honeymoon. "My steering isn't that off. Don't say it is, Rose Tyler. Is this- are you- no you couldn't, and where am I- he- you two are still- it's just that I've had a bit of trouble with dreams, lately, not that this is one-"

He's relieved when she reaches forward and covers his babbling mouth with one hand.

"Try again," Rose tells him, and moves her hand away. It lingers against his cheek for just a second, skin warm and pink like apples, little lines in her palm from the straps of the bag. There's a ring on her left hand. She's so real.

"Hello," he says, in a rush of breath.

"Hello," Rose echoes. She is smiling at him and her eyes are so bright, brighter than he even remembers, and there are faint lines at the corners of her eyes and her mouth. He hopes they are from smiling like this. "Welcome to the gingerbread house," she says.

"Have you remembered all my lectures?" he asks, half-kidding. He's standing too close to her and he can smell her soap and shampoo, the slight sweat under her coat. "Or just the ones revolving around baked goods and temptation?" A question bubbles up in his mind. "How is it," he asks, "that you were sitting just in the right spot at just the right moment, with this wonderful bag of lunch?" He looks down into the bag. "Are those jam biscuits?" When he looks back up, Rose has a funny, fond expression on her beautiful face.

"Surprise," she says.

"D'you like the chin?" he asks, suddenly self-conscious and tugging at the skin of his cheeks. "It's a bit rugged, but it does get in the soup. I offended a Transphasian bishop that way, he told me I could go swimming on my own time." She laughs, the most delightful sound in any universe. "But really, Rose," he says. "How?" She seems to think about that for a moment, and then puts her free hand over his chest, tucked just under the lapel and pressed up against his shirt front, too close to the skin. It's too intimate, too familiar, too long since anyone's touched him this way. He wraps a hand around her wrist awkwardly and they stand there like that for a long count, her feeling the rapid beat of his hearts and him willing them to slow just a little.

"I don't know the how," says Rose. "But I've always known why."

"Ah," he says again. And then he says, "I took the precaution of installing a back-up circuit after the last time this happened. But it's got a charging cycle." He clears his throat, glances to his shoes. She's not the same girl, and he's not the same man, but he remembers how to ask. For her, even twice. "Twenty-four hours is a long time, for people who know how to spend it."

"We could find you a proper tie," she grins, and he clamps down on his neckwear defensively. "What?"

"Bowties," he says, "are cool."

"Okay," says Rose.


End file.
